Minette Marrin

‘Say seebong-seebong, say seebong-seebong,’ sang the Filipino band in their white tuxedos, swaying cheerfully from side to side. ‘Si bon, si bon,’ whispered Sweetie to the music, smiling carefully, swaying her sumptuous jade earrings in time to the Filipinos’ narrow hips and tapping her manicured nails on the tablecloth; everyone said that before she had left her last husband, who was with the Banque de L’Indochine, she had made him pay for a face lift and a bottom lift. ‘Si bon, si bon,’ she half-sang again, looking archly at her guests round the table; she was giving a birthday party for her new husband, a Scottish investment banker.

If diaries are all about name-dropping and indiscretion, and they usually are, perhaps I should say that I had lunch on Tuesday with the Prime Minister at No. 10. This is the sort of thing that no diarist could bear to suppress. On the other hand, the unwritten rules of journalism dictate that I can't say anything about it. So does my editor at the Sunday Times. What a miserable dilemma. And in the very week when The Spectator asked me to write this diary. I suppose I can at least reveal that we had lamb stew followed by fruit salad; both were simple but good. Presumably the purpose of such meetings, among other things, is to subject us journalists to the Prime Minister's formidable charm.